How Far Do I Have To Go
by lil kagome 15
Summary: I have to find how far it is I can go, and I won't be satisfied until I knowI would have gone as far as it would have taken to get the power I'd wanted.How far do I have to go to be alone with you? [complete][S&S][DEDICATED]


**Title: **How Far Do I Have To Go

**Rating: **T (pg;13)

**Dedication: **This is dedicated to Nokas-Kokas Who was able to appreciate my writing even when I could not, and I do hope you can all commend her on that fact, for an un-bias based opinion is hard to find, and it is great to have someone be appreciative of your writing.

**Author: **LK & CBA

**Disclaimer: **I don't own the anime used in this story, nor do I own the Icharaku ramen, but I do own the saying at the bottom and the rest of the story. So go ahead any claim anything else.

How far would you have gone?" Naruto stood before Sasuke, his eyes closed but his fists clenched in sheer anger. "Would you have taken my life? Would you have finished me off so many years ago?" His eyes remained closed, and it was easily seen that he was suffering from fatigue. It was seventy-two hours with no sleep for Naruto, Sakura, and Sai. The trip had been extensive, and Sakura was suffering the most, having used most of her Chakra to save Sasuke who had fallen to Naruto's Resingan while Sai had been forming a diversion. Still it seemed too soon to judge if the mission will have been successful. Naruto took in a deep breath, letting it out in the very next moment.

"You say you cut those bonds, but would you have killed me? Sakura? Would you have taken the lives of the only people who ever knew the true you?" He seemed to be getting annoyed, and as his eyes opened he saw a look of ennui on Sasuke's face, which in all his life happened to be the most infuriating sight he'd seen. "Damn it! Can you not talk? Are you deaf? Do you not remember what it was I said to you? You let go of everything that was our friendship! Damn it do you even know what that means?" His voice began to rise, and for a bare moment both were individuals, not the brothers in combat they had become in childhood.

"I have no need for such bonds, they only accede for your heart to soften I have no need for such things! They are merely set-backs! Don't expect me to become your _'precious friend'_ either; I would never be friends with someone as kitschy as you." At this Naruto shrunk back, his eyes clouding over as he thought again of the last time they had met in friendship, the last time their bonds had still been intact.

"That's funny, because to me those bonds are all I have, and to me you were more than just a bond, you were a precious friend that I couldn't bear to part with. You stole the boy I became friends with, for I am sure that you could not be him! He was kind, even in his silence he was kind!" Naruto screamed, leaving him alone in the dark to stare at the crackling fire that would very soon be left to die out.

Sakura limped into view, her pink hair falling forward into her eyes as she slumped before the fire. Her arms were bruised harshly, her face spattered with blood. She hadn't changed that much though, Sasuke noted this pensively as she sat back on a log, her head resting on the cold wood. She didn't look at him, her eyes striking out at the fire as if it had offended her in some way. She sat that way for a half-hour, just staring into the crackling flames until they died to glowing embers that barely lit her face to his sight. Her frown had appeared for the first time since he had seen her. She didn't seem to care he was watching, though her breath was starting to become labored.

His eyes watched her as she slumped forward, her hands holding her side as he calmly observed her actions. "Damn it!" She cursed under her breath, trying to sit back up, though it was to no avail. He could smell the blood that had become entrapped in the material of her shirt. He watched her wince, but she not once called out for help, her head bowed as if in thought she started to lean back once again, easing down with her palm on what he knew was an open wound.

"Why don't you call for help?" His voice was deep, hoarse, and even a bit bitter, but she just laughed, her eyes closing as she turned her head away from him.

"That's something I just don't do." Her eyes landed on him yet again. "Though you wouldn't know that would you?" She laughed again, but this time it was out of pure acrimony. "You don't know how he hurts do you? His insides tear, they bleed, it's all because of you. That day you nearly took his life, you stole something else as well. Do you know what that is?" Sasuke glared at her, trying to ignore her hedonistic talk. "It's his heart Sasuke." Sasuke's eyes reached her, not only because of her statement, but the way she had proclaimed to him her name. It had been the first time she had chosen to avoid the annotation.

"How can indict that of me? You were the one who broke his heart! You were the one who brushed him off and insulted him, not me, not me." He stopped, his voice lagging on the thought of hurting his friend like he had.

Sakura stared up at him, and in that moment he realized this wasn't over, he had hurt her, and this time there was no taking it back. "That sure was a low blow. You know just as well just why I had brushed him off, should I have lied and hurt him even more? You have no idea! Sasuke I loved you with every part of my heart, and you were just as willing to let it go! I had waited for you for so long, hoping you'd come back. It wasn't till I'd turned sixteen did I realize you wouldn't be coming back, at least not for me." She halted in her words, breathing deeply for a moment.

"Naruto spent so many nights awake and alone, I knew it, I sometimes had done the same. I remember when he went to train, his goal wasn't only to defeat the akatsuki, it was to bring you back! It was to have you home, and for him not to be so alone. You don't think I kn-know… Just how much I'd hurt him." He didn't miss her sob, and in that moment he realized just how hard it must have been to watch Naruto break, to see his eyes grow dim, to bear witness to the tears that fell from his cerulean eyes. He heard her gasp, and the next moment was the first he had spent with her in dead silence. She had slumped forward, her hand clenching at her blood-soaked shirt.

"Your annoying, you know that right." He said, his eyes turning from her, and trying to block out her gasps of pain and sadness. She sat up, studying the ground as she let a green chakra seep from her fingers.

"You don't spare to remind me every time we meet, how could I forget?" Her voice quivered, and he almost clenched his fist in pain. "That's not the only thing you taught me though, you taught me to block, you taught me to lose. You even managed to teach me to enjoy the silence." She smiled scathingly, her eyes growing to a deeper green as she stared. "You made me look at myself in disgust. You made me despise myself in more than just my character." Her voice went untouched, and she let her hand drop to the ground. "I never thought you'd come back, but Sasuke, your not the same boy I was so enamored with." Her words were cut as she stood, her body movements becoming languorous as she made her way towards him. She smiled, her hand coming to rest on his cheek.

He was dazed with what she was doing, her eyes piercing his own as he had never thought possible from her. "You know what you must do Sasuke, he is more than just some bond! You've got to let go of Orochimaru, do you even know what that snake creep was going to do to you? He was going to use you for the akatsuki! He was going to make you become a comrade with your brother. He was going to situate you against your own enemy and you turned a blind eye damn it!" Her voice had risen, and he could tell she had worried. He could feel it in her hands, the sheer terror coursing in her veins left him feeling inebriated.

"You still worry even after I tried to kill Naruto? What kind of a friend are you? What kind of a person would care for someone who had hurt them so many times?" She glowered, her eyes piercing into the depths of his heart.

"I'd still worry if you'd try to kill me! You… you… you're part of me! Your part of what I am, not only my past, you keep me in line can't you see? All that time I spent training was because of you, because you made me feel weak. You made me lose interest in everything else, that's why I became a ninja, you were everything, and all I ever wanted to be was –" She cut herself off, stepping abruptly away, she waited no longer to go sprinting off, and for the first time, he was left to watch her back as it grew further away from his view.

Naruto chose that moment to come from the shadows. "That's what hurts the most you know. She doesn't open up like she used to, she's decided that hiding it will make it go away, that's why she works so hard, she's trying to forget. There was a time where I know she wouldn't have cared if she'd died or not, and you know what, I couldn't have stopped it. She's right; all I've ever done was for one purpose, but not only for you! It was for the people I care about. All the people of Kanoha, the bonds we've shared, can you not see how that strengthens me?" He smiled, looking down at the now self-pitying Sasuke. "You would've never understood what she's gone through. She nearly killed her own father, and when he recovered he was killed two weeks later in the raid." He stopped as Sasuke looked up at him.

"No. You're not so much alone anymore. She understands just as well as you and I how it feels to be alone. She used to cry you know, but she didn't shed one single tear at her parent's funeral! Not one!" Sasuke looked stunned, but he hid it well behind his most popular façade of indifference. "I'm not sure how much you've changed, but I'm not willing to find out what kind of a monster that man has taught you to be! Damn it! I couldn't save you-!" His words died off as he slammed his fist into a thick tree. "You'll surely be executed if that's all they find left in you." He sat, his eyes staring poignantly at the fire that had now completely vanished.

"You just did." Sasuke didn't smile, but his perpetual scowl had grown soft, leaving his face looking near to what it was before his leaving the village.

"Still… there are some things that can't be undone." Naruto was looking to where Sakura had run off to, his mind going over all he had learned of her and from her since Sasuke had left. She was one of his closest friends, and he had seen her heart shatter and break, and it never seemed to grow back, though she was who she had always been, it was clearly out of obligation.

Sasuke looked down to Naruto, a small smile spreading over his face. "Though they can always be recovered," his hands were bound, but he held the bonds in front of Naruto, waiting for him to cut the bonds that for once were meant to be so. Naruto did it, though not out of leniency, out of friendship. He stood, dusting off his pants and nodding to Sai as he glared at him in warning. "I am still the enemy, but I will try to change that, and not for any of you. This time I'm doing it for myself, for the bonds I have to create once again." Naruto seemed to understand, and he walked to the tents, nodding in Sakura's direction.

Sasuke hesitated for a moment before heading towards where Sakura had run to. She was kneeling in front of a stream, her reflection staring back at him in absolute shock. She pulled a kunai from her holster, and assumed fighting position, her eyes staring wide at his face. "How did you-? What did you do to Naruto?" At this point she was glaring, and Sasuke laughed, a harsh and horrid laugh it was. He looked over her petite form, and gestured for her to lower her weapon.

"Nothing you wouldn't have done." He grasped her wrist, but she jerked her arm away, clearly stung by the interaction. "Have you become me?" He asked in amusement, his eyes staring into her frozen ones. She seemed to have lost it, her chest rising and falling, but her body stiffened and stung. He placed his arm to his side, watching her recoil.

"I-I was held captive by the Akatsuki on a restricted mission. I wasn't allowed to tell anyone of what happened, but I was more than willing to kill every person who'd ever lay a hand on me again. I hid in my house after my rescue for nearly a month. Naruto was the only one there, he talked me out of myself, got me back on my feet." She shuddered and in that moment he could only imagine what it is she had seen within the walls of the akatsuke compound. "I remember being tortured; the beatings only near enough to scar my life and never end it. I was bung from the ceiling by tethered leather. I remember the Sharingan, the darkness, the emptiness. It all still seems so vivid. I wanted- no needed- to prove it wrong. That's why I came after you. I thought that it wasn't true, I believed that it would never happen, but how far would you have gone?" Her words rang true to his mind, the fact that he knew at one point he would have killed both the girl before him and Naruto. He had hidden that part of his heart though, trying to forget that it existed even still when he had resided in Oochimaru's care.

"As far as it would take to give me the power I wished to achieve." He said, not bothering to deny the fact that he wouldn't have spared his once close friends. "I would have taken your lives on instinct; not bothering to react to the pain it would have caused the old Sasuke." Sakura stood straighter, listening to his words as they were her very lifeline.

"I would have given everything… anything to bring you back, but in the end I only caused a hindrance, I was an extra distraction when I got injured and an empty defense when it came to this fight. I don't want to ever feel like that again. Sasuke go back, I'm not coming with you. This time it is my turn to run. I'm not coming back until I know just how far I have to go." She smiled briefly, and in that moment he saw the girl he used to loathe, and it made him the happiest he'd been in years. "Tell Naruto I've gone to train, and don't leave again, at least not until I come back.

"Hn." He answered, leaving Sakura alone in the clearing, just as it should have been.

_Two Years Later_

"Naruto!" Sasuke said, screaming in the boys' ear as the alarm clock rung along on the side-table. "Naruto!" He said again, this time earning an unintelligible groan. "Naruto wake the hell up!" He said again, and Naruto rolled off the bed and onto the floor.

"I'm up… I'm… up." As he said that last word he let out a snore and Sasuke rolled his eyes, picking the blonde up by his shoulders and forcing him into the bathroom and sitting him in the bathtub.

"Ahhh!" The blonde screamed as the cold water rushed down onto his pale skin. "What was that for teme?" He said, and stood, his cobalt eyes staring deridingly into Sasuke's. Both males let out a small laugh, before leaving the bathroom and heading out for another day of fighting what was left of the war of leaf and sound. Though this morning was different than most, and they found that as they stepped into the Hokage's office.

"Hey, Tsunade baa-chan, what mission do you want me to do today?" Naruto stopped dead as he saw the young female standing stolidly before the hard oak desk of the Hokage.

"No missions today." Her voice seemed almost hoarse, and she stared up at the pink haired girl toiling dangerously with the tip of a kunai. "Sakura go with Naruto, there is still much to prepare."

Sakura nodded, leaving the office in toe with Naruto, but not showing any glee at that moment. She turned though, as they rounded a corner and broke into a smile. "Tadaima!" She said ardently, her eyes shining as she hugged him for the first time in two years. "I'm… home…" She sobbed into his chest and he knew finally that she really was.

Sasuke just happened to stumble upon the site, and his eyes misted ever so slightly at the sight of his once-thought-dead associate. "Don't just stand there Sasuke-teme, Sakura's back!" At that moment Sakura halted in her musings and straightened up, her tears wiped away in an instant.

"Okaeri-nasai" he said, bowing his head at the _woman _that now stood before him, and in all honesty the term was not used very lightly, she had stopped wearing her regular shirt and had started wearing a regular American-style t-shirt and now she wore fingerless gloves.

She stared at him for a moment, until she crashed into his chest, sobbing in euphoria at being able to hold something again. She had trained so long; the solitude had nearly brought her to tears at times. She remembered the nightmares she had been woken from, the people she had met, and the recent evidence she had currently fallen upon, but none of that could have raised as much feeling as just seeing these two did in two minutes.

She felt it odd comparing two years to two minutes but it all seemed to justify her fear of accepting Sasuke back, but now she knew that that's all there was to it, there was no pain, no exulting, no reprisal, just reunion. She felt herself come back to reality as she looked to the side, hoping not to see what she thought she would see. 'Of course' she thought as she saw the incriminating finger. 'Just like old times.' He smirked at her anger and she huffed. It was the last thing in all her hopes for him to flick her in her forehead, one body-part that she wished for no-one to draw attention to.

"Why you!" She punched him, but he nearly shrugged it off, and walked toward Icharaku Ramen.

"You better hurry up or I'm not buying!" He called back and for a split second all Sakura could think was 'what the hell?'. Naruto stood talking to Hinata in front of the Ramen eatery, his eyes captured by her for the moment, that's why she was almost sure he had missed the slight brushing of Sasukes hand against her thigh, and why she chose for once to be blissfully-ignorant.

"So did you ever find out how far you had to go?" Sasuke asked as he took his seat.

"I think I did." She took a step forward, and looked him straight in the eye. "I'm standing here aren't I?" He smiled for the first time she could ever remember, and for a moment she was grateful she had left when she had and spared herself seeing him cry as he stabbed his brother in the heart. For that smile would last forever, but his tears would outlast the rain that visited very frequently, and like many phiolosophers would say,

_Those who run in the wake of the rain, find out life on both sides is the same._

Sakura looked into Sasuke's eyes, and she could tell she had made it rain for him too many times for his good, and for that she was sorry, but her mind wasn't centered on that, but on the hand that was slowly ascending it's way up her skirt.

"Can I take your order?" the man asked, and all Sakura could think is 'how far do I have to go?'


End file.
